Brazil has withdrawn its offer to host a large U.N. conference on climate change next year, the foreign ministry said Wednesday, in a move that environmental groups said put into question Brazil’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions.

 

Brazil pulled its offer to host the 2019 climate change conference because of “the current fiscal and budget constraints, which are expected to remain in the near future,” according to a foreign ministry statement sent to the Associated Press on Wednesday.

 

Environmental groups interpreted the decision as a nod to President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who promised during his campaign to pull Brazil out of the Paris Accord on climate change.

 

Since being elected, Bolsonaro has publicly wavered on those promises. However, climate scientists have said that Bolsonaro’s stated intention to open the Amazon for greater development could make it impossible for Latin America’s largest nation to meet its reduced emissions targets in the coming years.

 

The World Wildlife Fund in Brazil noted that the decision not to host next year’s conference diverged from the position shared by Brazilian officials before the elections, “demonstrating the strong influence of the transition team.”

 

“Brazil’s participation is vital to meeting global targets, as our country is currently the 7th largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the Amazon has a key role in regulating global climate,” said the group in a statement.

 

Brazil’s candidacy to host next year’s meeting was to be reviewed during this year’s conference, which begins this weekend in Krakow, Poland.

 

Brazil’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to questions about whether anybody from the current administration of President Michel Temer or Bolsonaro’s transition team would attend the meeting in Poland.

 

Bolsonaro, who takes office Jan. 1, vowed during the campaign to help mining and agribusiness companies expand their activities in protected areas, including Amazonian forests.

 

Bolsonaro’s pick for foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo, has also expressed skepticism about climate change.

 

“This dogma has served to justify an increase in the […] power of international institutions over national states and their populations,” the incoming minister wrote in an October blog post.

 
…

As Mexico wrestles with what to do with more than 5,000 Central American migrants camped out at a sports complex in the border city of Tijuana, President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s government signaled Tuesday that it would be willing to house the migrants on Mexican soil while they apply for asylum in the United States — a key demand of U.S. President Donald Trump.

 

Mexico’s new foreign minister also called on the Trump administration to contribute to development projects to help create jobs in Central America to stem the flow of migrants from the impoverished region, suggesting an appropriate figure would start at $20 billion.

 

“We cannot determine at what pace people are interviewed” by U.S. officials as part of the asylum process, the incoming foreign relations secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, told a news conference in Mexico City. U.S. border inspectors are processing fewer than 100 asylum claims a day at Tijuana’s main crossing to San Diego, creating a backlog of thousands.

 

“So, what do we have to do?” Ebrard asked. “Prepare ourselves to assume that a good part of them are going to be in this area of Mexico for the coming months.”

“We have to support local authorities” in housing and feeding the migrants, he said, adding: “That is not a bilateral negotiation. That is something we have to do.”

 

Lopez Obrador, who won a crushing July 1 election victory and takes office on Saturday, built his political career on defending the poor. He now faces the difficult task of placating Trump on the migrant issue while upholding Mexico’s longstanding position of demanding better treatment for migrants.

 

Ebrard told reporters Tuesday a key administration goal is securing a U.S. commitment to development projects in Honduras, where the vast majority of the migrants in the caravan come from, as well as neighboring Guatemala, El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America.

 

“What are we negotiating with the United States? We want them to participate in the project I just mentioned” to create jobs in Central America. Asked how much the U.S. should contribute, Ebrard suggested the figure should be at least $20 billion.

 

“Mexico by itself is going to invest in our own territory during the next administration, more than $20 billion, and so any serious effort regarding our brothers in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, should be for a similar amount,” Ebrard said.

 

Ebrard’s statements came as anxious Tijuana residents closed down a school next to a sports complex where thousands of migrants have been camped out for two weeks.

The move came after U.S. border agents fired tear gas into Mexico to turn back a group of migrants who had breached the border over the weekend. The incident prompted Mexican authorities to step up the police presence around the shelter.

 

Citing fears for their children’s safety, the parents’ association of the Gabriel Ramos Milan elementary school bought their own lock and chain and closed the school’s gates. A sign said the school would remain closed until further notice.

 

Carmen Rodriguez said parents had been calling for authorities to do something since the migrants arrived, adding that her 9-year-old daughter wouldn’t be returning to classes until they are gone.

 

“We are asking that they be relocated,” Rodriguez said, noting that some migrants had approached the school grounds to ask children for money and use the school’s bathrooms. Some even smoked marijuana around its perimeter walls, she said.

 

She said the parents worry about anti-migrant protesters converging on the sports complex again, as they did last week. “If they come here and there is a confrontation, we will be caught in the middle,” she said.

 

The migrants themselves were urgently exploring their options amid a growing feeling that they had little hope of making successful asylum bids in the United States or of crossing the border illegally.

Most were dispirited after the U.S. agents fired tear gas on the group of migrants trying to cross into the U.S. on Sunday. They saw the clash and official response as hurting their chances of reaching the U.S. Mexico’s National Migration Institute reported that 98 migrants were being deported after trying to breach the U.S. border. The country’s Interior Department said about 500 people attempted to rush the border, while U.S. authorities put the number at 1,000.

 

There was a steady line Tuesday outside a tent housing the International Organization for Migration, where officials were offering assistance to those who wanted to return to their home countries.

 

Officials also reported more interest from migrants wanting to start the process of staying in Mexico. A job fair matching migrants with openings in Baja California saw a growing number of inquiries.

 

“What happened yesterday harms all of us,” Oscar Leonel Mina, a 22-year-old father from San Salvador, said of Sunday’s border clash.

 

Mina, his wife and their toddler daughter avoided the protest and were glad they did after hearing others recount what unfolded, he said.

The events made Mina rethink his family’s plan of making it to the U.S. He says he’s heard people talk of Rosarito, a beach town popular with U.S. tourists about a 40-minute drive south of Tijuana.

 

There “you can earn money and live well” if you’re willing to work, he said. He set a goal of trying to move his family out of the sports stadium in another week.

 

Mexican security forces stepped up their presence at the sports complex, apparently seeking to avoid a repeat of Sunday’s ugly scene.

 

Tijuana public safety secretary Marco Antonio Sotomayor Amezcua told a news conference that Mexican police would be prudent in their use of force, but “we have to guard at all cost that the border posts are not closed again.”

 

Sotomayor said he hopes migrants who had thought of entering the U.S. illegally learned from Sunday’s events that that won’t be possible.
…

Argentine authorities say that Buenos Aires will be an armored city when world leaders arrive for this week’s G-20 summit. But security failures that marred a soccer championship and deeper unrest over an economic austerity program are now raising concerns about the country’s ability to ensure safety.

 

About 22,000 police and security agents will guard U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders from the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging nations during the two-day meeting that starts Friday. At least another eight U.S. aircraft and up to 400 American military personnel and civilians are expected to provide security.

 

“We’re working on every detail,” said Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, at a press conference addressing G-20 concerns. “We don’t have disagreements, and even less so in these types of operations where we work in teams.”

 

Even with beefed up security, however, the Argentine government will inevitably be facing demonstrations that could potentially draw thousands of activists, some of whom might be coming from other parts of the world.

Anarchist and anti-capitalist groups have announced that they will stage protests under the slogan “Get Out G-20, Get Out IMF,” while messages posted on social media are demanding the ouster of Trump and other leaders, such as Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who will take office on Jan. 1.

 

The summit comes just days after an inopportune soccer-related incident also threw public security measures into question.

 

Critics say that police on Saturday failed to prevent an attack on players from the Boca Juniors soccer club when River Plate fans hurled stones and other objects at their team bus as they were headed to play a championship match.

 

Several players, including the team captain, were injured when a bus window shattered, while others were affected by tear gas and pepper spray used by police to contain violence. Fans also vandalized cars and other property near the stadium, ultimately leading to the postponement of the Libertadores Cup final.

 

Argentina is the first South American country to host the G-20 summit, and officials have the added challenge of ensuring that chaos is better contained than it was at last year’s meeting in Hamburg, Germany.

At that summit, a 38-square-kilometer (almost 15-square-mile) “no-protest zone” encompassing the airport in Hamburg was blocked off as clashes broke out between police and protesters.

 

Authorities have reiterated that they’ll crack down on any effort to disrupt the gathering and will not tolerate violence.

 

“Whoever manifests does so in the framework of peace and free expression and not in that of violence,” said Minister Bullrich.

 

Regardless, unrest is already bubbling beneath the surface.

 

Earlier in November, two attempted attacks using homemade devices were made on a judge’s home as well as the mausoleum of a police chief; false bomb threats on a bank and a train station added to the sense of unease.

 

Argentines have also taken to the streets in mass in recent weeks to demand solutions to the country’s economic crisis and reject government austerity measures implemented in response to currency and inflation problems.

 

The crisis has forced President Mauricio Macri’s government to seek a $56 billion credit line with the International Monetary Fund this year and has been a source of discontent for those who have bad memories of a 2001 crisis when banks froze deposits and people were prohibited from withdrawing their savings.

 

Macri, a pro-business conservative who came into office in 2015, had promised to trim Argentina’s fiscal deficit, reduce poverty and curb inflation.

 

On Monday, he said he regretted the violent acts before the soccer game and tried to calm fears about the summit.

 

“I can’t accept the fact that to organize a sporting event you have to practically militarize the whole city — it’s crazy,” Macri said, adding that the G-20 gathering shows that the world supports Argentina, and that his government will work hard to make sure that everything “goes well.”

 

National Security Minister Bullrich herself admitted that ensuring safety during the Boca-River game would be a “minor” thing compared to the huge challenge of securing world leaders and other participants during the G-20.

 

But she also said Argentina was up to the task.

 

The government said that the train and subway systems in Buenos Aires will be closed during the meeting, and authorities will cordon off a wide area near where the summit will be held.

 

An airport located in the city will be exclusively available for officials arriving for the gathering, although the Ezeiza international airport on the outskirts of the city will operate as usual.

 

The mounting challenge of welcoming the leaders and about 15,000 people has also prompted the Argentine government to stock up on equipment, including bulletproof vehicles, high-powered motorcycles and bomb scanners purchased in China.

 

In addition, the security ministry has established ways to monitor radiological and nuclear activity, track explosives and reinforce border controls.

 

The government says it is in close contact with foreign authorities to block troublemakers and avoid riots.

 

“Whoever wants to demonstrate must do it within the confines of peace and freedom of expression. Not violence,” Bullrich said.”Whoever crosses the line, will have to face the legal consequences.”
…

Mexico’s incoming foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Tuesday that to contain migration pressure in Central America and southern Mexico, an effort on the scale of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt war-ravaged Europe would be needed to develop the region.

Mexico is battling to curb the flow of migrants from Central America fleeing violence and poverty, and tensions have risen on the U.S.-Mexico border since the arrival in the last few weeks of a caravan of mostly Hondurans seeking U.S. asylum.

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has pledged to discourage migration through economic development, and wants the United States to contribute to a plan focused on Mexico’s poorer south and Central America.

Speaking in Mexico City, Ebrard said the solution might not be similar to the Marshall Plan, “but it will be in terms of the scale of the effort that needs to be made,” he told reporters.

Named after U.S. general and later Secretary of State George Marshall, the Marshall Plan was a massive U.S.-backed effort to rebuild Western Europe after the devastation wrought by World War II.

Ebrard, who is due to meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday to discuss the border and migration, said estimates were still being prepared to determine just how much funding would be needed to develop the region.

Mexico alone was likely to invest more than $20 billion in southern Mexico during the coming administration, Ebrard said.

“As a result, any serious effort undertaken for our brothers in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala would need to be a similar sum,” he added.

The bulk of illegal immigrants caught trying to enter the United States in recent years have set out from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, three of the most violent and impoverished countries in the Americas.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been pressuring Mexico to keep the migrants while their asylum claims are processed in the United States. Members of the incoming government have suggested some sort of deal may be possible.

Ebrard said Mexico was not thinking of deporting the Central American migrants currently stuck on the U.S. border.

“What’s to be done? Get ready to assume that some of them are going to be on Mexican soil and in that area during the next few months,” he said.
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Mexico’s outgoing government said on Tuesday it would bestow the country’s top honor for foreigners on Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, a decision quickly met with derision by critics on social media.

Kushner, who also serves as a senior White House adviser, will be admitted to the Order of the Aztec Eagle because of “his significant contributions” to a new North American trade pact agreed to in August, the government said in a statement.

Kushner has often played a key diplomatic role in Trump’s administration, meeting with Mexican and other foreign leaders and helping broker the deal to update the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. Canada joined the pact in late September.

The award is expected to be formally presented to Kushner on Thursday by outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto on the sidelines of the G-20 summit of world leaders in Buenos Aires, Mexican newspaper Reforma reported on Tuesday, citing unidentified government sources.

The summit is also where the leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada are expected to sign the revamped regional trade deal.

The honor bestowed on Kushner was a trending topic on Twitter, where it appeared to be mostly criticized by prominent Mexicans.

“Giving him the Aztec Eagle reflects a supreme attitude of humiliation and cowardice,” Mexican historian Enrique Krauze wrote in one post, noting that Trump called Mexican migrants murderers and rapists during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal wrote that the decision to honor Kushner was “tremendously shameful.”

Past Order of the Aztec Eagle honorees include Colombian Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez and former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be inaugurated on Saturday after winning a landslide election victory in July. Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, is expected to attend the swearing-in along with other U.S. officials, including Vice President Mike Pence.
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday sanctioned the wife of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and one of his aides under a new executive order allowing Washington to target Nicaraguan officials for a crackdown on anti-government protests.

The U.S. Treasury said it had used the new executive order to punish Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife, and an aide it named as Nestor Moncada Lau, accusing them of undermining Nicaragua’s democracy.

The step will have the effect of freezing any property owned by Murillo and Moncada that falls under U.S. jurisdiction and of barring U.S. individuals, banks and other entities from carrying out any transactions with them.

There was no immediate response from the Nicaraguan government for a request for comment on the U.S. action.

More than 300 people have been killed and at least 2,000 injured in crackdowns by police and armed groups on protests that began in April over government plans to cut welfare benefits and then escalated into broader opposition to Ortega.

U.S. officials said they were trying to influence Ortega, a former Marxist guerilla leader whose response to the protests has been compared to the reign of Anastasio Somoza, the dictator he helped topple in 1979.

“It’s a message to President Ortega to find an exit strategy and to begin a process for … free and fair elections,” a senior Trump administration official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “It’s an opportunity to find some type of solution … to the crisis that they have created.”

Ortega, who ruled the country from 1979 to 1990, has held elected office as president since 2007. The current violence comes after years of calm and is the worst since his Sandinista movement battled U.S.-backed “Contra” rebels in the 1980s.

Ortega in July rejected the idea of calling a referendum on whether to try to calm opposition against him by holding an early election before the next scheduled presidential election, due in late 2020.

In announcing the sanctions, the Treasury accused Murillo of dismantling Nicaragua’s democratic institutions and looting its wealth in an effort to consolidate power.

It described Moncada as acting as a national security adviser to both Ortega and Murillo. While he does not have an official position in the government, he is believed to have considerable influence over the police.

Moncada’s involvement in intelligence operations with the Sandinista party stretches back to the early years of the revolution in the 1980s.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump told supporters at a political rally late Monday that his administration has no intention of allowing Central American migrants who traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border to enter the United States.

“We are sending a simple message to the lawless caravans and to the illegal trespassers marching toward our border,” he said at the rally in the southern state of Mississippi. “It’s very simple: turn back now, go back home, we will not let you in.”

​His comments came a day after clashes in the area around the San Ysidro border crossing that divides the U.S. city of San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico. A group of migrants had been peacefully protesting long wait times for their asylum claims to be heard when some migrants split off and tried to breach the border. U.S. border patrol agents responded with tear gas to repel the group.

Trump praised the work of border patrol agents and the members of the U.S. military he sent to the border last month, while downplaying the seriousness of using tear gas.

“First of all, the tear gas is a very minor form of the tear gas itself. It’s very safe,” he told reporters Monday.

Trump also claimed three border patrol personnel “were very badly hurt, getting hit with rocks and stones.”

WATCH: Trump comments on border clash

​That contradicted a statement earlier Monday by Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan who said, “Four agents were hit with rocks, but were wearing protective gear and did not suffer serious injuries.”

The incident prompted U.S. authorities to temporarily close the San Ysidro crossing, something McAleenan said his agency was prepared to do again if necessary to ensure safety.

Vicki Gass, Oxfam America senior policy advisor for Central America, called the use of tear gas “a shameful response,” and said those fleeing violence and persecution should instead be met with compassion.

“The people at the border are exercising their legal right to seek asylum, as they are entitled to under U.S. and international law,” Gass said. “Rather than prioritizing a militarized response to women, children and men seeking refuge, the Trump Administration should focus on providing resources for an orderly asylum process.”

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said Monday it sent a note to the U.S. Embassy regarding Sunday’s events asking authorities to conduct a full investigation into the use of non-lethal weapons from the United States toward Mexico. It also reported 98 migrants involved in the clashes were being deported.

The several caravans of migrants came mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Their reception as they moved through Mexico was largely positive, but the situation in Tijuana has been more strained as the group of thousands of people now waits for their next step in an area that was already sheltering people who hope to have their asylum claims heard by U.S. authorities.

​Al Otro Lado, a group providing legal assistance to the migrants, is among those calling attention to the processing times at the border. It said CBP processed 60 asylum seekers on Monday, and that the backlog that existed even before the caravans arrived means another 2,000 people will need to be processed before any of those from the caravan can have their cases heard.

“CBP has the capacity to process asylum seekers faster,” the group said on Twitter. “They are very obviously trying to force another confrontation like yesterday’s, and we need to ask ourselves why. More border closures? A total shut down of the asylum system? More prison camps? None of it is good.”

Francisco Vega, governor of Baja California state where Tijuana is located, said there are about 9,000 migrants there, most of them in Tijuana with others in Mexicali. He appealed to President Enrique Peña Nieto and the federal government to consider the situation a matter of national security and to take responsibility for coping with the effects of having so many people at the border.

Vega said that while in the past people in the state have welcomed others with open arms, he faulted the government for allowing the caravans to advance through the country without any type of immigration control. “And now we are paying the consequences,” he said.

​U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen echoed some of Trump’s sentiments in her own statement late Monday, saying “the overwhelming majority of these individuals are not eligible for asylum in the United States under our laws.”

She pointed to historically low approval rates for those seeking asylum from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, and she said most of the migrants are seeking jobs or to join family members already in the United States, and had “refused multiple opportunities to seek protection in Mexico.”

Mexico’s interior ministry reported in early November that more than 3,000 caravan members had requested refuge in Mexico.
…

A chaotic border clash with choking tear gas fired by U.S. agents left Central American migrants sullen and dejected, with some opting Monday to leave and others worrying the incident may have spoiled their chances at asylum. 

Mexican security forces stepped up their presence at a Tijuana sports complex where thousands from the migrant caravan have been sheltered, apparently seeking to avoid a repeat of Sunday’s ugly scene. Police blocked the migrants from walking toward the border in the morning, though later on they allowed them to move about freely. 

Isauro Mejia, 46, from Cortes, Honduras, went looking for a cup of coffee to shake the morning chill following another night sleeping outside after being caught up in the clashes. Before, he had hoped to be able to press an asylum claim, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“The way things went yesterday … I think there is no chance,” Mejia said. “With the difficulty that has presented itself because of yesterday’s incidents … that’s further away.” 

Migrants hoping to apply for asylum in the United States must put their names on a waiting list that already had some 3,000 people on it before the caravan arrived in Tijuana. With U.S. officials processing fewer than 100 claims a day, the wait time for the recent arrivals stands to take months. 

That has instilled a sense of desperation among many after their grueling trek from Central America. Sunday’s incident began after hundreds marched to the border to try to call attention to their plight. Some attempted to get through fencing and wire separating the countries, prompting volleys of stinging gas.

Cindy Martinez of San Vicente, El Salvador, said she had been about to cross the concertina wire to the U.S. side when the tear gas was launched. She estimated about 20 people had already passed in front of her, and parents begged agents not to unleash the gas because there were young children present. 

“I see it as impossible for them to want to give us asylum,” she said. “Because of the words that President Donald Trump has said, I think this is impossible.”

Martinez, 28, said she was now considering getting work in Tijuana. 

Mexico’s National Migration Institute reported that 98 migrants were being deported after trying to breach the U.S. border. The country’s Interior Department said about 500 people attempted to rush the border, while U.S. authorities put the number at 1,000. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said 69 migrants who tried to cross illegally were arrested on the California side. He said the Border Patrol’s use-of-force policy allows agents to use tear gas and other non-lethal methods, but the incident would be reviewed. 

“As the events unfolded, quick, decisive and effective action prevented an extremely dangerous situation,” McAleenan said.

Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said it had presented a diplomatic note to the U.S. Embassy asking for an “exhaustive investigation” of the use of nonlethal force. 

Migrant Yanira Elizabeth Rodriguez Martinez said she, her daughter and her sister had stayed away from Sunday’s demonstration because they feared it could turn dangerous. Sitting in their makeshift camp at a sports complex Monday, the 38-year-old asked what the process would be if she decided to return to El Salvador.

​”Because of (the actions of a few), we all pay,” said Romario Aldair Veron Arevalo, a 20-year-old friend sitting with her. He said he still hoped to cross to the United States and work, but conceded it could be more difficult now. 

In a rare criticism, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission admonished migrants that they “should respect Mexican laws and not engage in actions that affect the communities they pass through.”

“It is important to note that the fact the Mexican government protects their rights does not imply a free pass to break the law,” it said.

Commission official Edgar Corzo Sosa said after visiting the shelter Monday that the space intended for 3,500 is now crowded with more than 5,000 people. 

He said officials were receiving more requests from migrants wanting to return to their countries, but did not have a number. He said a beefed-up police presence was for the migrants’ safety. 

“There is nothing to prevent them from leaving” the shelter Corzo said. “They are free to come and go.” 

The clash also led U.S. authorities to shut down the nation’s busiest border crossing at San Ysidro, California, for several hours Sunday. 

“Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries,” Trump tweeted Monday. “Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the WALL!”

Trump has repeatedly suggested without evidence that the migrant caravans are full of hardened criminals, but they appear to be mostly poor people with few belongings fleeing poverty and gang violence. 

U.S. and Mexican officials have been wrangling over migration and how to deal with asylum-seekers at the border as Tijuana, a border city of 1.6 million residents, struggles to accommodate the crush of migrants.

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who takes office Saturday, declined Monday to comment on the border incident. 

Asked about Trump’s warning that the U.S. could close the border “permanently” – which would disrupt billions of dollars in trade – Marcelo Ebrard, who is to be Lopez Obrador’s foreign relations secretary, said, “Let’s hope we can keep that from happening.” 

On Monday, Trump said Vice President Mike Pence and daughter Ivanka Trump plan to attend Mexico’s presidential inauguration. 

The White House has said Trump has developed a “strong relationship” with Lopez Obrador and looks forward to working with him. 

Tijuana public safety secretary Marco Antonio Sotomayor Amezcua said in a news conference that Mexican police would be prudent in their use of force, but “we have to guard at all cost that the border posts are not closed again.” 

Sotomayor said he hopes migrants who had thought of entering the U.S. illegally learned from Sunday’s events that that won’t be possible. He added that the mayor is working to secure another space for the migrants with the sports complex overflowing.

Baja California state Gov. Francisco Vega said almost 9,000 migrants were in his state – mostly in Tijuana, with a smaller number in Mexicali – and called it “an issue of national security.” Vega issued a public appeal to Mexico’s federal government to take over responsibility for sheltering the migrants and deport any who break the law.

Alex Castillo carried a red bedroll slung over his shoulder as he walked away from the Tijuana shelter Monday, saying he would head to the industrial city of Monterrey to look for work and try to cross into the United States next year. 

The 35-year-old electrician from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, said he wasn’t at the border clash. He heard about it from others and decided to leave “to avoiding getting beaten.” 

“If they’re launching tear gas,” Castillo said, “it’s better to head somewhere else.” 
…

Even though five-year-old Kamila is used to getting blood drawn, she cried out when the needle pricked her arm, clinging to her mother for comfort in a classroom-turned-clinic in the northern Colombian city of Riohacha.

Venezuelan Kamila was born premature at 30 weeks, weighing just 900 grams (2 lbs). Her early entry into the world came with kidney problems and cerebral atrophy that have delayed some parts of her development and kept her limbs spindly.

She is one of thousands set to receive treatment this week from doctors and dentists from United States Navy hospital ship the USNS Comfort.

Many are Venezuelan migrants who have fled economic crisis across the border. Others are Colombians, including indigenous Wayuu, seeking care amid constant delays in Colombia’s overcrowded health system.

The United Nations on Monday pledged $9.2 million in aid for Venezuela, where hunger and preventable disease are soaring due to food and medicine shortages. President Nicolas Maduro blames the country’s problems on U.S. sanctions and an “economic war” led by political adversaries.

Most patients, pre-screened by local authorities, will receive care on land in two clinics set up in schools, while those needing surgery will be flown by helicopter to the ship itself, anchored far offshore.

“The tests we needed for her would have cost so much in Venezuela, but here they did it in a few seconds,” said Kamila’s mother Yennymar Vilchez, 24, who arrived four months ago.

The ship’s staff last week treated more than 5,400 patients over five days in Turbo, a city near the jungle border with Panama, including 131 who had surgery.

An estimated 2,500 will be seen in Riohacha, 91 kilometers (56 miles) from the border with Venezuela, through Friday.

The arrival of Venezuelans has burdened the beleaguered Colombian healthcare system, especially in border cities, where patients can wait months for basic care.

“The migration crisis has certainly played a factor,” Captain William Shafley told journalists after an opening ceremony. “We’re here to help the Colombian government and their obviously strained healthcare system.”

Colombia, which has received about one million Venezuelan migrants, could be hosting four million by 2021, the government has said.

Many cross the countries’ porous land border without documentation, heading onward to other Latin American countries like Ecuador and Peru.

Outside the dentistry room, Yessica Epiayu, 29 and a member of the Wayuu indigenous community, corralled her six children, aged 3 to 11, as they took turns getting cleanings.

Her eldest son Orlando grinned broadly, proudly showing off a gifted dental mirror.

Some surgeries require too much follow-up to be performed on the ship and are referred back to local authorities.

Venezuelan Belkis Chirino, 29, a former restaurant manager, had hoped her 11-month-old daughter Jade could get pelvic surgery to guarantee she will walk despite a congenital deformity.

But the doctors need further X-rays and the intense procedure, which risks damaging some nerves, will require significant time in the hospital.

“I’m grateful even though she doesn’t get the surgery,” said Chirino. “At least they can help my Venezuelan brothers and sisters.”

But others like Vilchez, Kamila’s mom, got good news. Her daughter’s kidneys are getting healthier and a new medication will help her other symptoms.

“It’s wonderful!” she said, as she clutched the brown pharmacy bag, Kamila in her arms.
…